Wed.’s Devo - Lost and Found

Read: Joshua 5:1-7:15; Luke 15:1-32; Psalm 81:1-16; Provers 13:1 It was time to enter the land but first this new generation needed to be circumcized. All the people who had left Egypt had died except Joshua and Caleb. God called the place Gilgal which means ‘rolled away’ since God had rolled away the reproach of Egypt from them. They celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth of that month and ate the fruit of the land, From that time on, there was no more manna. *** The kings of the Amorites and the kings of Canaan had heard of what God did at the Jordan River so they were very afraid of Israel. As Joshua was scoping out Jericho he met an angel of the Lord. He gave Joshua the strategy for taking Jericho. They were to lead with the Ark and the priests and encompass the city once each day. On the seventh day they were to circle it seven times then the priests were to blow their rams horns and everyone was to shout. They obeyed and on the seventh day when they shouted, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. They were to kill everyone and take all the spoils and give them to the Lord. Rahab and her family were to be saved. *** Achan coveted some of the spoils and secretly hid them in his tent. When they went to take the next town of Ai, which should have been a cinch, they fled in defeat. God told them that it was because someone had brought something cursed into the camp. Joshua brought every tribe before the Lord and the tribe of Judah was chosen. Joshua told them that whoever was chosen whatever had been stolen and all that they had must be burned with fire because he had transgressed the covenant of the Lord and brought trouble upon Israel. *** In Luke, Jesus gave two examples of how God feels about his lost sheep. One was a sheep which the men could relate to and the other was a lost coin, which the women could relate to . Then he told the story of the prodigal son which shows us the heart of God as our loving Father. The youngest son was foolish, impulsive, entitling and ungrateful. He didn’t know how to handle his finances and chose not to live the way he had been brought up. He wasted his inheritance and yet his father never gave up on him coming home. *** The oldest son was faithful, patient, and obedient and yet he is the one who was reprimanded in the end. Yet was he? His father said, “Son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours. It was the right thing to do to rejoice and be glad, because your brother was dead, and is alive again, he was lost and is found.” I paraphrased that a lot, but that was the jest of it. The father was putting his faithful son on the level of a friend and honoring him even though the son wasn’t seeing things right. He was trying to teach him that mercy always triumphs over judgment. *** I think that this story is going to be a theme we will see as this new generation of converts come in. We have always had the Lord, but the revival will bring in people who are so different from us who will be so new to Christianity. When God pours out his favor and love on them, we are going to need to remember the right response. We join in the party and rejoice with them. *** Lord, may we rememberer what it is like to be lost, then found. May we have the right response when we see you pour out your love on the prodigals. May we rejoice with the angels in heaven.